Chris Argyris: Biography and Contributions to the Administration

Chris Argyris He was a theoretician of the organization of North American origin. He taught at the Harvard Business School and was named Leader of Thought in Monitor Group, the international consulting company of the Deloitte group. This company advises the most important companies in the field of business administration.

He worked with Richard Beckhard and Edgar Schein of MIT, and Warren Bennis of the University of California in the creation of the theory of organizational development, which studies the changes within the world organizations and the improvements in their functioning.

"Faulty advice and the management trap", one of the works of Chris Argyris

He devoted a large part of his professional life to work in learning organizations, which are companies where the learning of their members is encouraged to generate positive changes within the company. This concept was originally taken by systems scientist Peter Senge, and Argirys believed deeply in the effectiveness of his methods.

Biography

Chris Argyris was born on July 16, 1923 into a family of Greek emigrants who lived in Newark, New Jersey. While he lived a good part of his early life in New Jersey, he also spent time in Athens, Greece.

Participation in the war

During the participation of the United States in World War II, Argyris served the US Army. When the Americans joined the war after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor, Argyiris was not yet 20 years old and had not studied any university career.

It was not until the end of World War II when he enrolled at Clark University, where he met the psychologist and pioneer of organizational culture, Kurt Lewin. Lewin served Argyris as inspiration for what was his career in the world of organizational structure and in his studies in psychology.

Studies

After graduating from psychology at Clark University, Argyris studied a master's degree in Psychology and Economics in 1949. In 1951 Cornell University awarded him his PhD degree, after completing a thesis based on the development of behavior in organizations.

The supervisor of your thesis was William Whyte, a famous sociologist known for his research in urban sociology.

Chris Argyris died on November 16, 2013, and contributed to the understanding of the existential thinking of the human being even being a few days after his death.

Career

Argyris began his professional career at Yale. After a period in which he worked as an assistant, he was given the position of professor in administrative sciences. Argirys taught at prestigious universities in the United States and in 1971 he was called from Harvard to be a professor of Education and Organizational Behavior.

He was a professor until his retirement, and both the University of Toronto and Yale University gave him honorary degrees in Social Sciences, recognizing the illustrious career he had as an organizational theorist.

Contributions to the administration

Argyris' early research was based on the formation of formal organizational structures, the control systems companies use over their employees, and how individuals react to administrative instructions within an organization.

Based on his studies, he wrote his first two texts: Personality and Organization , In 1957; and Integrating the Individual and the Organization , in 1964.

Once this area was explored, he devoted himself to the study of organizational changes. He investigated how the executives of a company behave, which led him to write two more books based on this: Interpersonal competence and organizational effectiveness , In 1962; Y Organization and innovation, in 1965.

Later he devoted himself to the scientific study of changes in societies; at this time he wrote two more books. He also devoted himself extensively to the study of learning, both individual and organizational, and to what extent human reasoning can influence individual decision making within an organization.

Adult personality

Chris Argyiris determined through his studies that managers and managers who treat their employees as responsible adults and in a positive way, generate an exponential increase in their productivity.

As Argyris theorized, making an employee feel responsible makes him want to take on more important responsibilities, as well as a greater variety of tasks and the fact of wanting to participate in making important decisions for the company.

The theorist's studies concluded that the problems that administrators and managers have with their employers are caused by not knowing how to correctly treat mature personalities of employees. They can also be caused by the fact that outdated practices are used to do so.

Science of action

Argyris collaborated with other sociologists to develop a theory that promulgates relevant research for problem solving and knowledge creation. The theory arises from the study of the decision making of people at times of high difficulty.

In his research, Argyris took as a base a series of variables that influence human behavior and contrasted them with the results obtained to generate conclusions that would enrich his organizational studies.

The variables that the sociologist took into account define how each human will learn about each error or result obtained after each decision.

Theories of action science

Argyris had two theories about learning in the science of action:

- Circuit learning.

- Learning in double circuit.

According to Argyris, the first learning circuit is generated when an individual takes an action and from this the consequences are generated that it expected, eliminating the conflict that could exist with other adverse results.

The second circuit combines the understanding of the first with a second stage in which not only a resolution of a conflict is sought through an organizational decision, but at the same time seeks to comment on the conflicts that may arise when taking a decision.

These theories could not only be applied to individuals within an organization, but also to the organizations themselves.

References

1. Chris Argyris Obituary, The Boston Globe, November 18, 2013. Taken from legacy.com
2. Chris Argyris: theories of action, double-loop learning and organizational learning, (n.d.). Taken from infed.org
3. Chris Argyris, (n.d.), December 10, 2017. Taken from wikipedia.org
4. William Whyte, a Gang Sociologist, Dies at 86; Steven Greenhouse, July 2000. Taken from nytimes.com
5. Organizational Theory, (n.d.), February 20, 2018. Taken from wikipedia.org
6. Organizational Development, (n.d.), February 22, 2018. Taken from wikipedia.org